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Hello everyone. I was out of the business for a few years and I am a bit rusty on how to set up my lab scope for primary and secondary iginiton patterns. The shop im working in has the modis with four channel leads a low amp clamp and a rpm clamp and what is labled a kv lead. I was sucessful at getting a good injector pattern with test leads but I drew a blank when I went to test the coil and ignition patterns looking for this miss-fire. The car is a 99 sentra 1.6L. Distributor, cap, rotor, plug wires. I just forgot?

First thing you want to do is just go into Ignition scope, Parade 5ms. Then scroll along the top tool bar all the way to the right. Open the toolbox or utilities icon. Then go to Ignition scope. You will then need to set up for what you are working on. So with what you have for ignition accessories. You will go Standard for ignition type. Then choose the amount of cylinders. Then firing order. You will trigger off of a Plug. Once your done that close that out. Connect the grey trigger lead to number 1 plug wire. Then the black cable with the aligator clip, to the coil wire. It is is a good idea to hook that aligator clip up to a ground. Then start the car. The numbers on the bottom of the screen represent the cylinder numbers. Also if you open the View icon up you can change the pattern to a digital diplay, with high's and low's. Great feature.

Oh yeah, if your pattern is choppy. go down to the bottom right and click yes. You will notice on the left side of the labscope screen a arrow. You will be able to move this up or down within the thresholds of the pattern you have on the screen. This will keep it more stable

Oh yeah, if your pattern is choppy. go down to the bottom right and click yes. You will notice on the left side of the labscope screen a arrow. You will be able to move this up or down within the thresholds of the pattern you have on the screen. This will keep it more stable

The ball park setting is in the 1-2 kv range.
A good rule of thumb is to start with it set at the level of the spark voltage for best overall performance.
Do not set it up higher as if you were triggering on the firing voltage.
It doesn't work like the typical lab scope trigger.

All of that makes sense. How do I connect to the coil wire when its coil in cap? Do I need to clip the adapter to the cpu trigger (on/off) source? I think in this case the cpu applys voltage to the transistor base to saturate the coil? So would I clamp to that wire and ground the aligator clip?

All of that makes sense. How do I connect to the coil wire when its coil in cap? Do I need to clip the adapter to the cpu trigger (on/off) source? I think in this case the cpu applys voltage to the transistor base to saturate the coil? So would I clamp to that wire and ground the aligator clip?

The secondary pickup is only for connecting to coil secondary wires.
For coil in cap, you will need an adapter such as EETM306A05 found here:http://www1.snapon.com/diagnostics/us/modis
It is listed what vehicles the adapter typically fits.
The adapter is placed in a position on the cap that puts it near the coil so it can detect the coil secondary.
The adapter may work on others not listed, but you won't know until you try it. Basically if it can be secured in position over the coil, it may be able to detect the secondary.
Don't forget there are other tools and approaches to use too (Scanner misfire detection, Scope Low amps coil current, Lab scope - Primary/control signals, etc).

I have seen people take the head off the coil wire clamp (comes with the kit I mentioned we have at work) and put it on cop units and gotten a wave form out of it. Similar to the flags. Might this work? I think I'll try it.

So what you are saying is that there is no way to get an ignition wave form out of a cic with the equipment I have?

I have seen people take the head off the coil wire clamp (comes with the kit I mentioned we have at work) and put it on cop units and gotten a wave form out of it. Similar to the flags. Might this work? I think I'll try it. If you are talking about taking the clamp and unscrewing the head to expose the copper pickup, yes it might work if the signal is strong enough. It may not be though, just depends on how close you can get to the coil windings or the path from the coil to the center button.There is some silicone dielectric grease in the pickup. Ideally you want to retain it and if you use it like this you will probably lose a bit of it.

So what you are saying is that there is no way to get an ignition wave form out of a cic with the equipment I have?Outside of the method you mentioned above there are other ways. If you were to stick a piece of aluminum tape to the dist cap over the coil or the path from the coil to the center button, then jumper it to the lead, you may get a usable pattern. The metal tape acts like a pickup. We actually used that method with the old Sun Machine line of testers instead of attempting to make a specific pickup for every different dist cap being produced.This method is very similar to using the flag pickup you mentioned.

The nice thing about having the adjustable threshold setting in the ignition scope is that if you do have a weak signal, you can select a lower scale (Down to 2kv) and then lower the threshold setting accordingly to get it to trigger on the weaker signal. Of course with some, the signal will just be too weak to test like this.

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